Monday, 29 September 2014

Maizy Cat Litter Review

Over the past month we've been trying out a different type of cat litter, one that isn't based on clay or wood like traditional litters, but one which is corn-based. Corn! When we were offered this product, Maizy cat litter for review from Pets Corner and were told it was corn-based we were imagining all sorts of things - admittedly most of them were around a litter tray full of "Green Giant" type corn nuggets or corn-on-the cob kernels... Spoiler alert - the litter doesn't look at all like what we were imagining.

24 litre bag of Maizy Cat litter

Before I plunge into this review, some background information: We have two cats here, Harvey and Tiggs. Tiggs spends about 80% of his time outside, but Harvey is an indoor cat and has been litter trained since kittenhood. For the purposes of this review, with Harvey being the primary litter user in the house, we will assume single cat usage. Currently we use non-clumping clay-based litter for the litter tray. We regularly remove and dispose of faecal matter from the tray, freshening up the litter as and when required, with a full litter change being carried out between once a week and once a fortnight. The tray is enclosed and situated in our bathroom. (Well, it makes sense to have the cat toilet near the human one).

At the beginning of this month Harvey's litter was due a full change so we removed the old clay litter, gave the tray a quick clean, lined it with newspaper (which is what we usually do) and filled up with Maizy.

Harvey's litter ready to be used

The obvious thing from the litter is that it is yellow; however you can see that it looks more like fine-grained standard litter than lumps of corn. Initial impressions for us were good. The litter, although a sizeable bag, is quite lightweight. It also appears to have very little dust compared to many regular clay-based litter products. It smells quite pleasant.

We left it in the tray and let nature take its course.

Unlike our regular litter Maizy is a clumping product. This means that there is a little more involved than just filtering out excrement. You additionally have to remove the clumps formed when the cat urinates. This isn't too hard a task, but can be a little more time consuming. Our litter tray has two compartments and a filter to help with this, so we would simply line the second tray, place the filter over it, and then tip the old tray into it. A little shaking later and the mostly clean litter would be in the new tray while all the clumped waste matter would be in the filter.

We would then add a small layer of fresh Maizy litter to the tray, clean the previously used compartment and put the box back together.

To see how often we needed to remove the clumps we experimented with the number of days between changes. Essentially we found that you could get away with clearing the litter every other day. Longer than that and you would start getting a noticeable cat odour.

When it came to removing the clumps I should mention the smell. If you've ever had small animals (like mice, rats, guinea pigs, etc.) you have probably kept them on sawdust/wood shaving-based bedding. When you clean them out, there is a certain smell it has which is obviously a mixture of urine and sawdust. It is a smell similar to that which you face here. This isn't a bad thing. Usually used cat litter has a far more noxious and unpleasant smell to it. This is much nicer.

We found that, by regularly removing the clumps and cleaning the trays, the litter supplied in the 24 litre bag that we were given was enough to last about 3 weeks. After this point the litter was due a complete change. We did have an amount of litter left in the bag, but not enough to refill the tray. (Our tray is quite a large one, although that is partly because Harvey is quite a large cat; smaller cats and smaller trays may get better mileage from a single bag than we did here).

Maizy cat litter is also more environmentally friendly than regular cat litters; it is biodegradable and earth friendly, which means it can be composted or flushed (regular litter has to be disposed of in the normal non-recycling weekly bins collection). It's available in two sizes, the 24 litre we tested and a smaller 12 litre bag.

The finer grains of the litter means it's suitable for cats with sensitive paws - not a problem we have here, Harvey seemed fine using the litter. Some other "fine grained" litters we've used in the past have changed the colour of his paws, however there was no noticeable change in their colour during the month (I suspect when this has occurred previously, there has either been a higher dust content or it's the nature of the litter's colour that it transfers easily during use).

Harvey our happy cat!

Personally I like the product. It is lightweight (even when completely emptying a full, used, litter tray), low dust and has a fairly pleasant smell - both when fresh and used. It is nice that the litter is environmentally friendly, especially when it comes to its disposal. All in all it's a good ecological alternative to clay-based clumping litter.

9 comments:

I reviewed Maizy and was totally impressed. I am awaiting a fresh order and the cat litter I am using at the moment is unable to compare to the anti-odour element of Maizy. It's really noticeable now and I found Maizy got rid of that ammonia smell completely. Loved it and can't wait to have it back in the house!

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About Me And My Blog

Hello everyone, my name's Ellen and I'm in my mid-thirties and from Somerset. I write about my life and my dogs. I also enjoy entering competitions, reading and spending time with my family. I also review various products. Thanks for visiting.